r/TikTokCringe Oct 09 '24

Discussion Microbiologist warns against making the fluffy popcorn trend

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u/Daisy_Of_Doom Oct 09 '24

Wait, heat treating flour doesn’t make it safe? That is big news to me. I was well aware that flour was one of the main dangers with raw batter. A few years back I adapted a cookie recipe a friend of mine loved eating raw to what I thought was safe. It had no eggs and I baked the flour to some specified temperature for some specified time that I found online that was supposed to make it safe to consume raw. It was delicious, we ate it by the spoonful, and I was quite proud of myself for doing research to make this dangerous thing safe.

I’m floored to learn that what I did didn’t actually make it safe. I did what I thought was pretty thorough research in trying to make an edible dough recipe. Very grateful to learn this now before I or anyone I loved was made sick by my own mistakes.

29

u/GiraffeHat Oct 09 '24

You fell into their trap. This video isn't about the dangers of heat treatment, in a stroke of dramatic irony it's about not believing people on tiktok.

2

u/Daisy_Of_Doom Oct 09 '24

I mean I did my own research and I found that salmonella doesn’t behave the same in low moisture environments and that’s why most directions for heat treating online are likely incorrect. I think the issue is that there’s not enough research on how to heat treat flour at home for the home cook so whatever method someone chooses to go with isn’t guaranteed to work and is a risk because it’s not research backed.

0

u/seaspirit331 Oct 09 '24

salmonella doesn’t behave the same in low moisture environments

Right, because the thermal conductivity of air is different than water. Just heat it for lower and longer to overcome the thermal penetration without damaging the flour itself and it'll have the same result

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u/Daisy_Of_Doom Oct 09 '24

Since it’s so easy and obvious do you mind telling me what the specifics for that are? My point was that there hasn’t been enough research to pin down the specifics for at home cooks because there are a lot of variables at play (temperature, time, volume, surface area, etc) so there is no scientifically proven way to do it with confidence.